Chapter Twenty-Three
Will
Kennedy shuts the door behind her before moving to the edge of my bed. I remove the rest of my gear. It's onerous and annoying, but I always practice in all my pads. It's best to run drills that way–makes you a better player.
“Probably not a good idea for you to take a shower with me, huh?”
She sends me a look of pure irritation and I can’t stop the bark that comes out of me. “Not funny,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “I'm also really mad at you.” She turns her face away from me, lips turned down in a frown.
I stand in front of her, stepping between her legs, “It's a little funny.” She rolls her eyes before covering her face once more and flopping backward, hair fanned out behind her, looking beautiful and wonderful. “Don't be mad at me. They were going to find out one way or another.”
She sends me a surly look and I hold my hands up in surrender. “You could have announced it in literally any other way and it would've been better than that. My dad's all pissed off now, and everyone knows. It was humliating, Will!”
I don’t even care that Mark’s pissed, I’m thrilled, down right exhilarated about our relationship being out in the open. I feel like I’m a million feet tall, she’s my girlfriend and everyone knows about it. But she's right. I should've had a little more tact.
I whip my sweat soaked undergarment off, tossing it into the hamper in the corner, grabbing my towel off the closet doorknob, tossing it over my shoulder. I squat down next to the bed and whisper out, “You're right. I'm sorry.”
Kennedy peaks at me, “It's not fair that you're so reasonable. I want to be mad at you,” she says while trying to suppress a grin.
I lean forward to drop a kiss before getting into the shower, but Kennedy's gaze drops to my shirtless chest and she gasps.
Her face goes red again and then rolls over, face shoved into the mattress.
She lets out a muffled yell before turning her head in my direction again.
“Do not walk out of this room without a shirt on. For the love of everything holy, please, Will, put your shirt back on.”
Now is not the time to push her, I can see she’s really embarrassed, red streaking down her neck and under the collar of her shirt.
I put my shirt back on, reluctantly because it's disgusting to put a sweaty shirt back on, but I do it for her anyway. “Get ready while I’m in the shower. We’re going on the snowmobile so suit up,” I tell her on my way out.
I don't offer her the choice, I know she's stressed and anxious, but I know if we don't get away from the cabin for a little today, she'll spend the rest of today in her room with the door closed hiding in a cave of blankets.
I take a moment in the bathroom to strip and inspect how bad this hickey really is.
It seems to have caused a huge uproar so I’m expecting something massive.
It’s honestly not that bad. It's clearly a hickey, but it's not overly huge or even that dark.The only thing of note about it is the fact it's placed a lot higher up on my neck than she usually leaves them.
There are two more marks on my chest. One pretty close to the hickey on my neck but a little lower, able to be covered with a shirt, the other one’s nearly on top of my shoulder. I stare at them for a few minutes thinking about how I got them, remembering the way she was sucking on me last night.
I don’t have time to get worked up over Kennedy right now, so I take a quick perfunctory shower.
Afterwards, I shave my face because I’m getting a little too scruffy.
Even though I don’t want to do it, because I not-so-secretly like when she leaves marks on me, I dab a little bit of her make up on my neck.
It's not a good match, several shades too light for me, but whatever, this is the best I can do.
Fifteen minutes later I’m double layered up with long johns, thermal shirt and pants, and knee high wool socks, ready to snowmobile together. I’m more than a little excited for this date, it's been something I’ve imagined us doing together a few too many times over the years.
I knock on Kennedy’s door, a little anxious I might find her crying.
I don’t, I find her standing, fists akimbo, staring at the chaos of clothes she has spread over the bed and onto the floor.
I smile at the mess because it's so Kennedy. I never really knew how messy she was before we dated. Her apartment was almost always spotless every time I’d been over there before, and until yesterday, I’d never been in her room while she was staying here.
Miranda is very neat and tidy, and because they are best friends, I just figured Kennedy was like that too.
She grabs a pink sweater from the pile on the bed and pulls it over her black thermal shirt, facing me. “So Miranda and Liam since September?”
“I know. I was thinking about it in the shower. I didn’t see it coming, but I should have, the signs were all there.”
“Wait, what? Really?”
“Yeah, he’d leave the hotel for, like, an hour every night to talk to someone on the phone. I just didn’t care because it meant we could talk without him being in the room listening to me trying to flirt with you.”
“How could you have not asked him about it? Isn’t he one of your best friends?”
I shrug, “He is but I don’t know, we just don’t talk about that kind of stuff.”
“You guys live together!”
“Yeah, but I don’t keep track of where he is at all times. And what about you? Did you ask Miranda about it?”
“Yes." She looks at me like I'm stupid. Of course she asked Miranda.
“And she didn't tell you?”
“No, she didn't. She told me it was some golfer from Minnesota and that he had no social media of any kind and wouldn't show me a picture either. The only reason I didn't push harder was because I was trying to keep us a secret.” She shakes out her snow bib in front of her, clearly irritated, “So Miranda obviously knew. Right? If they’re together, then she already knew about us?”
I run my hand across the back of my neck, “Yeah, probably. I mean I told Adrian we were going on a date. And they see me in the locker room with no shirt on all the time. Liam’s never asked me outright, but I’ve never said I wasn’t with you either.”
“I don’t understand boys,” she huffs, trying to stuff her bottom half into the baby blue snow bib she has clutched in her hands.
She looks like she’s struggling, leaning her body against the bed to try and pull the cumbersome snow pants up.
There’s not a lot of room in here to dress for winter activities, it's the smallest room in the cabin, I don’t know why she always picks it.
“Need some help?”
She narrows her eyes at me, giving me her fake outrage look before saying, “I guess.” I grab both sides of her snow pants and pull upwards, lifting her feet off the ground a little. “Will!” I let go of her and she hisses at me, “You just gave me a vagina wedgie.” Which I find hilarious.
She rights herself then picks up a shirt from the floor to reveal her purse. She digs through it and pulls out a small wrapped box, setting it on the bed between us. “I have something for you. I should've given it to you yesterday, but I didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone.”
“I have something too, hang on.” I bolt out of her room into mine, pulling the box from the drawer of my bedside table and then bursting back through her door to find her sitting on the edge of the bed.
Her eyes fixate on my hands, holding a similar sized wrapped box to hers.
I sit right next to her, close enough that I can feel the shape of her even through the one million layers we both have on.
“You go first,” I say, nodding my chin at the small box I pressed into her hand. She smiles down into her lap, shy and uncertain, looking so fucking kissable, before she slips a manicured nail under the seam of the paper. “This wrapping paper is really cute, by the way.”
I love that she always lets me know what she’s thinking. I never have to guess with her. “I have to admit that I didn’t wrap it. The lady at the store wrapped it for me.”
“Your old man eyes getting too bad, hmm?”
I love when we’re stupid together. When she’s making fun of me or starting a stupid bit. “Yeah, I’ve recently developed arthritis too.”
She flips the box over, gasping when she reads the gold embossing on the front. She looks at me, eyes big, “You have to open yours right now! With me at the same time.”
Unlike her, I don’t carefully unwrap the package. I slide a finger under the seam and rip, pulling the whole of the wrapping paper off in two seconds flat.
“No fucking way,” I say, seeing a familiar gold embossing on the front of the box.
We both take the lids off at the same time, Kennedy’s excitement palpable next to me. Inside I find a gold chain, chunkier than the one I got Kennedy, with a small gold K charm nestled in black velvet.
She pulls hers out and holds it in the air, examining it. It's dainty, a much daintier gold chain than the one she got me. But instead of a letter charm, hers has a small flat gold heart that dangles with K+W hand stamped into the back of it.
She hands me the chain before standing up, facing away, lifting her hair up with both hands. “Put it on me!” She glances back, smirking, “Please?”
It takes me a few tries to get the tiny clasp open, but I eventually latch it around her neck, kissing the sliver of exposed skin there. “How’s it look?” She asks, lifting her chin and turning her head from side to side.
“Beautiful.”
She takes the chain she got me from the box and turns me around with hands on my shoulders.
She latches it much faster than I was able to, smiling huge when I spin around to face her.
“It looks so good on you!” She tucks it into the collar of my shirts, “Wait, this is so sexy on you. You definitely have a muscular enough neck to pull a chain off.” She throws that out there like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
But it makes my stomach clench with butterflies. “I love it. Do you love it?”
I almost say I love you, but stop myself, feeling like I’m going to overwhelm her after the morning we had.
While she puts on her winter coat, boots, helmet and goggles, I make us two ham and cheese sandwiches and put them in my backpack.
We spend the next several hours driving around the property, zipping in and out of trails my dad and I have made over the years. We stop at a mini frozen waterfall, leaning against the machine to eat our sandwiches. “Did you happen to pack any drinks?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’re getting dementia too.
” She takes a few steps, “Just remember, you made me do this, old man, I'm about to die of dehydration becuase of your dementia.” Then she dives face first into a giant pile of powdery snow, shocking the hell out of me. When she stands back up, snow is embedded into her eyebrows and eyelashes, her nose and cheeks are red and blotchy. Snow is packed into her mouth, but she’s belly laughing.
“That was so much funnier and more successful in my head.”
I stare at her, thinking about how I’d be happy if this is what the rest of my life looks like.